


le bonheur aux lèvres, un peu naïvement

by luftballons



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Five Kisses Challenge, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 00:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3588819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luftballons/pseuds/luftballons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>England & France five kisses challenge written for a friend. Relationships are never easy or straightforward for nations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	le bonheur aux lèvres, un peu naïvement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [newamsterdam (eugenides)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=newamsterdam+%28eugenides%29).



> the title of the work is a line from "comme des enfants" by coeur de pirate

The first one is _anger_. It is “First of all how dare you ----” It is the crashing of waves against the shore as the time comes in after an angry storm, threatening to drown  them. England's hands are grappling to hold onto anything, and the silk under his fingers is a reminder of the unnecessary opulent display that France had once been and of which he kept trying to remind everyone. England wants to rip the fine cloth off of France's stupid, prissy shoulders and tell him where he can shove it when he complains. It occurs to him that makes the kiss he's just planted on France's lips seem that much more passionate. 

France doesn't understand where it came from. In one moment they were arguing, yelling about things that mattered and yet did not matter. Using words that meant nothing. There had been times that he joked that anger was just another kind of passion, but never had he thought England would make the first move – if this was a move, at all, that is.

 

The second kiss is  _pain_ . France's shoulders heaving with sobs before England tries to tell him that everything will be alright, but it's a sentiment France knows England doesn't know how to feel. Carrying on, oh, sure, but that didn't guarantee that the sun was going to come out, it just meant you'd keep your umbrella handy. And the truth is that he doesn't want England's sympathies any more than he imagines England wants to give  them , but the other nation seems to have remembered how well it ended their argument the first time and tries again in this other setting. It tastes strange with warm tears pressed in between lips, making the kiss taste of the sea, gently lapping back and forth against the beach. There is a calmness to it, trying to ease everything back into normalcy (although their “normal” does not include this, and they both can't help but wonder if that's something worth wanting).

France continues to pretend it hurts long after the pain has receded. England pretends not to notice. 

 

The third kiss is  _remorse_ . It breaks the silence of a thousand unspoken words, the slow build up and languish of high tide sweeping in and then rolling out, taking its time to get all the way up to the rocks set there to protect anything beyond. Those walls do not break, and the apologies do not come. How can they? Anything England or France may have wanted was beyond their control. And yet, France thinks, bitterly, England could have acted like a friend. Too many nights he had wondered where the man who had held him while he sobbed had gone, and too many nights he had told himself that third kiss would never come. 

For the third time, England surprises him with his forwardness and he starts to wonder if this is the same nation at all. 

 

The fourth kiss is  _pride_ , and finally, it is France who makes the gesture. He walks England around the streets of rebuilt Paris showing it off to him. _Look how the light shines through the stained glass again!_ England returns  _The Seine somehow smells less like piss than normal_ , which France assumes is the best compliment he is going to get. Pulling him into his arms, he kisses him in broad daylight and England curses at him, squirming to get out of the nation's hold until he finally steps on his foot hard enough to get him to stop, as if France were the undertow trying to drown him. France laughs and makes a few choice comments in french that England  understands just fine thank-you-very-much. 

The truth is, he hasn't see France this happy in decades. The fight he puts up is for old times sake, while his heart skips a few beats and flirts with emotions he's too preoccupied to admit to. 

 

The fifth kiss is  _uncertainty_ .  Quick and shallow as the low tide, and England wills himself to glare at France angrily rather than with the real pain he feels that France would kiss him and take it back so quickly. It's easy enough to do when he convinces himself this whole thing had been a damn rouse and it would be just like France to do something like that, but France isn't laughing. He hasn't gotten to the punch line. France frowns and looks and his shoes and it's unseemly from the flamboyant nation to be so out of his element. England starts to expect the worst. Whatever that could be at this point. 

Part of him, the part of him that had wanted that last stupid kiss, says that they've weathered a whole hell of a lot of the worse. 

England waits for the explanation that doesn't come. France manages something along the lines of thingsareabouttochange. He seems almost emotional and England wonders if France hadn't started to want this, whatever “this” was, himself. England couldn't possibly be the only one struck by this strange  disease , could he? He presses France for more, but gets nothing before they're shuffled off into meetings.

The next morning (literally, at three am), America calls demanding to know why France has dropped out of NATO and what the chances of success were for immediate invasion. England supposes that explains a lot. 


End file.
